Idea: Shopping aggregator
Problem: Although almost all stores have gone online, finding the best deals on goods is still challenging, particularly when taking into account specials, and shipping.
Insight: Although retailers can be selling the exact same goods, it's not always clear what the most competitive deal is. A pair of AirPods can be priced $30 less on Shopee, but with a shipping duration of 2-weeks. The same pair can be listed at Harvey Norman for 10% off with overnight delivery. Google has a shopping tab, but it's not very accurate and does a poor job of scraping the website data.
Validation method: Create a landing page ad on Facebook. Image: two AirPods- one with a price tag of $199 from Lazada, one with a price tag of $149 from a retailer with a censored name that is only revealed upon clicking through. Create a fake landing page that has AirPods for all the different retailer prices. Have links redirecting them to the official websites.
Notes: From a business model perspective, it would be best to find a very specific niche of goods that are high-value with reasonably large price differences. Get your validation there, then scale the scraping methods to other goods. Should be a reasonably easy business to validate, and there should be good demand. The hardest part of the business is scraping credible information, and getting people on the website.
Why am I doing this? I’m an innovation consultant who helps businesses build new products, and ventures. And I want people to see how easy it is to build, and validate an initial business idea. Hopefully inspiring them to start their own business.
Am I worried that people will take the ideas? I hope they do. These ideas will hopefully make the world a better place. Just remember, “Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything”